Social Media

Let me walk you through my morning thus far. I came into the office, logged on to Trillian, and started working. I received an IM from an SEO who made some small talk before getting to the point: he wanted me to digg/reddit about four stories. I clicked on the links and (pay attention here) voted for the ones I thought were interesting. I keep working. I notice that I get several email no...

Seattle-based wiki website Wetpaint have always done things a little differently to most wiki providers. With a highly user-friendly interface, Wetpaint lets even the most technically-uninclined people create websites. The sites, which are of course all wikis, can either be hosted at Wetpaint or on a ...

"Anything with a halfway interesting story about how an upstart like Facebook will beat Google will get listened to if for no other reason than to argue about it." - Robert Scoble
To test Robert's theory and to offer some belated support to his ...

I'll admit I sometimes forget certain website addresses.
And sometimes I'll Google eBay rather than type 'ebay.com' into the address bar (apparently I'm not alone, it's the 3rd most popular search query in the US)
Besides confirming that I'm lazy and have the memory o...

While I've only been involved in web development and SEO for three years, I've been participating in online communities since 2001. Over the last six years, it's been my privilege to help build and moderate a few online communities. I've learned a lot about the way people think and behave online and picked up a few helpful bits of information--and fortunately, I like...

Rand, how on earth do you expect me to complete any solid keyword research when you assign me a task that involves Facebook? Luckily, you asked me to review the most successful (and most useful, as they're not necessarily the same thing) Facebook applications. I'm one of those people who have shied away from adding applications to my Facebook account because I remember when Facebook was like a ren...

Yesterday, I received an email from Christ Bennett at 97th Floor, telling me about an awesome tool they were due to release tomorrow (now today, obviously), that lets you tell how many times a page you're currently viewing has been submitted to / voted upon at the four biggest social media services. However, far from being just a Firefox toolbar extension, the tool also shows up on Digg, Reddit, S...

I find myself in Montreal, Quebec this week, spending time with my old friend, Guillaume Bouchard of NVI and some new friends frmo an organization called Alliance numériQC (French only, sorry Anglophones). Guillaume and I got to chatting over dinner about the new version of Digg and the more prominent version of the social li...

Gary Price of ResourceShelf dropped me a line last week with some links to very cool content repositories on the web that have recently opened up or expanded. Browsing through a few of these got me thinking that the sheer amount of information available from non-profits, organizations and government entities could make for some very powerful viral mate...

While most of the search world is partying with Rebecca attending sessions at SES San Jose, some of us have been working away at our computers as though the biggest search function wasn't going on two states away. It's actually kind of awesome to be in such a quiet office, and it's equally pleasant not to have to pander to Rebecca's dislike of certain food groups when we ...

When I'm not furiously writing PHP here at SEOmoz, I built and now maintain the online music store TuneShout.com. It's a pretty small operation right now, but basically we let artists sign up themselves to give away and/or sell their music on our site, while we collect a small royalty. The site also have a large social component where artists' and...

When it comes to social media websites, the long tail theory breaks down a bit.
We'd expect, in a standard long tail curve, that the pink area represented more demand and value overall than the blue area. However, the reverse is overwhelmingly the cas...

The blogosphere and the world of social media is, by and large, ruled by human emotion. As web developers, marketers and entrepreneurs seeking exposure, we can choose to embrace the passions that dominate the creation of links, or we can ignore them and give our competition a potential edge.
In my experience there are a handful of emotions that dominate the desire to link or share conte...

With only a couple of exceptions, barely anyone has ever complained about receiving a lot of attention from social media. Occasionally, large social media communities, especially the one that rhymes with "pig", will take it upon themselves to pick on a website or an individual; however, aside from harassment, it's usually a good thing to have your content get popular in the social media ...

Inside the search marketing world, I still see many folks struggling to grasp the concept behind viral marketing, particularly when it comes to moving beyond the basic top 10 lists and iPhone helps destroy evil RIAA posts. So, I thought it would be valuable to take a look at some solid examples of well-thought-out, niche-relevant content that nails the viral marketing concept.
Let'...

While Rand was out of town he received an email from a man named Darren Barefoot. Since Rand was up to his ears in meetings, presentations, and consultancies, he forwarded the email to me and asked me to take a look at it. The email subject was "Can You Spare 88 Seconds?" My first thought was, "Probably." (Really, 88 seconds is not m...

...at least, not according to a study published by eMarketer. The article, titled "Search Marketers Seed Social Networks," cites a survey conducted by iProspect and JupiterResearch.
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1004937...

Rand's post on low referral traffic from Digg inspired me to write about a little-known potential traffic goldmine—Digg comments. I noticed some time ago that first post comments on front page stories can drive some remarkable traffic. Here are two recent examples. Last week...

Running through SEOmoz's Indextools stats this month, Matt & I noted that Digg has sent considerably less traffic the last two times SEOmoz has been on the site than ever before (starting with our first "Dugg" post back in January 2006). On average, we see between 12-20,000 unique visits from making the Digg home page,...

Today, we're launching our second annual Web 2.0 Awards. Only a month after we'd intended on launching (SES New York and that pesky "real work" stuff kept getting in the way), we've finally collected, collated and presented just under 300 sites in forty-one categories. Some of the winners and "honorable mentions" are similar to last year; others are completely different.

My favorite Cameron with an unconventionally spelled last name (other than Cameron Frye in Ferris Bueller's Day Off), Cameron Olthuis, wrote a post on Search Engine Land called "5 Reasons to Put Viral Content on Mini-Sites." Now, obviously Cameron ...

Cameron Olthuis over at Link Building Blog has been pondering the importance of positive comments on social media stories. His take is that even good content can be irreparably wounded by a few negative comments appearing first on its comment thread. The classic social media trait of voting for (or voting down) a story befo...

Myspace launched a social news site last week that allows users to vote on stories and democratically determine popularity, much like Digg. I've spent some time getting a feel for how it works and my opinion is that the site, much like everything Myspace produces, is medicore at best. The interface is clunky and has a simple voting system that isn...

It's Friday, so here's a little noise to keep you all amused. After Rand's presentation on Linkbait in this week's Whiteboard Friday, I got an image in my head that I felt compelled to draw. Here ya go.
...

Social media and viral marketing are all about creating "hits" - building content that will resonate with the Linkerati audience in a way that encourages sharing, linking and participation. It's no easy task, and this past Sunday, the New York Times Magazine had a terrific article that paralleled this struggle. From the piece - ...

I received an email this morning informing me that my Oatmeal account is the 57th most powerful member on digg. Apparently someone at HarryMaugans.com has done some independent research and created a list of the To...

Sure, Wikipedia's done away with live external links, limiting some of their value to SEOs (and making me a much happier person), but there's still an enormous amount of reputation management and links-for-traffic opportunities. Luckily, I've got the super-secret formula for how to add content and make changes to Wikipedia ethically and legitimately. But, first things first, let's review a few ...

I don't normally cross-post blog entries, but I figured this one was appropriate for the SEOmoz crowd. About two weeks ago I made a couple funny sketches of what social media websites would look like if they were all sitting around together.
Social Media Websites in Illustrated Form.
...

We post about Digg quite often (and here we go again), but I've been watching certain Digg phenomenon for a while, and one stands out from the rest as the most ironic and most amusing. My favourite Digg irony is the hatred the (a-HEM) Diggorati have for SEO, coupled with the fact that they fall for our linkbait All. The. Time.
Every so often, one of our employees will roll into the ...

Rand send me an email on Monday and asked me to review Twitter for the blog as it's been getting some coverage is the blogosphere lately. I'd heard of the site, but had never really investigated it in depth, so I signed up...

While chatting with a fellow SEO (whose identity I concealed, just in case he doesn't want his screen name public) over IM, I noticed that certain words were being underlined in green. When I hovered my cursor over an underlined word, I got a little pop-up definition, courtesy of Wikipedia. They even defined what "haha" meant (I slapped a border around the especially amusing part of the ...

At Voltier Inc viral content is an essential part of our game plan. Here is the first part or the techniques we use and the things we think about when constructing link bait and submitting to sites such as Digg.
The Ideal Article:
In order to have a successful Digg, you must submit i...

Recently, our SEO company Voltier Inc took on a local used car dealer in West Palm Beach, Florida, as a client. We were hired to bring customers to the dealership through referrals from the website. This is mainly done through leads generated on the website, and interest i...

More and more, quality content is becoming less scarce and the ownership of that content is becoming less valuable. With media 2.0, web 2.0, community 2.0, open source development, and the rest, content creation has become easier and the barriers to distribute that content are eroding away. Content is moving toward commoditization. Moreover, sites that still strangle...

I rarely spend more than 10 minutes reading an article on the web, but New York Magazine's article - Kids, the Internet, and the End of Privacy: The Greatest Generation Gap Since Rock and Roll - was well worth the 8 pages and 20 minutes. The crux of the piece centers on how the desire for celebrity has eclipsed the issue of privacy in my generation and those behind me:...

... and here I am in Seattle. No great arches. No grand museums, galleries or cathedrals. Only one iconic tower. While Scott and Rebecca have been drinking with SEOs in London and Chunneling it to Paris, Jeff, Matt and I have been sitting in our office, glaring glumly at a Western Washington sky that was blue this morning and is now pissing down with rain.

We recently bought a video camera and played around yesterday with some video shooting. Luckily, Scott, our resident former-Hollywooder, was able to convert the video into something we can put on the blog:
...

Our readers have done a great job of nominating websites for our 2007 Web 2.0 Awards, but I wanted to remind you all that today is the last day that we'll accept submissions for the awards. Because being strict with deadlines is fun when you're the one implementing the deadline, we won't accept any submissions that arrive after midnight tonight, Pacific time. So this is the last call to arms: get ...

I would start this post with the customary "I'm sorry for using the phrase Web 2.0" apology, but everyone who's ever used the term has already groveled to the 2.0 haters. It's that time of year again, folks. I have been charged with organizing the second annual Web 2.0 Awards.Last year, the Awards began as little more than a pet pro...

A bit of a personal angle on a business-relevant post. This last week in Seattle marked the worst windstorm since the 1960's. The Pacific Northwest is filled with powerless homes and apartments, as well as downed trees, road closures, food & gas shortages and the other, usual accoutrements of a natural disaster. As the ...

Recently, I've begun to see massive problems in the search and online community's definitions of linkbait. It boils down to two completely unique meanings for the term:
Linkbait Definition #1 - "Link-Worthy, Linkerati-Targeted Content"This is the way I typically use the term linkbait. It refers to a piece of content one creates (for one's own site or ano...

These days it seems like everyone's written an article or blog entry on all things digg, e.g. why you shouldn't game digg, digg etiquette, whether digg is rigged. Jeff and I thought we'd join the bandwagon and off...

Either someone at the Web Advertising Blog is gaming the social media sites, or the bar on quality has dropped to fantastically low levels. Making its debut on Digg and del.icio.us/popular today was this absolute stinker - ...

If you've ever signed up for an account on a Web 2.0 site, you've seen it: The ugly little image that appears after you've plugged in your desired user name, password, and email address. They're usually either ridiculously colourful, lying on a gridded background, or both. Annoying as they may be, these CAPTCHAs are included in the account creation process for the sole purpose of ...

Although I'm up to my ears in projects and deadlines, I felt compelled to blog about an article at Slate Magazine titled "$1 Billion for Facebook? LOL!" The article questions whether the current social marketing mania shares eerie similarities to the late dotcom bubble:The Dow's at a record high, youthful entrepreneurs ...